"Yes, go on! Where do you come from, and all the rest of it?" urged Evie Bennett.

"Are you dumb?" asked Rhoda Wilkins.

"Perhaps she can't speak English!" sniggered Dulcie Wilcox.

Gerda Thorwaldson, now the target of every eye, had turned crimson to the very roots of her flaxen hair. She stood in the centre of a ring of new schoolfellows, so overwhelmed with shyness that she did not volunteer a single response to the volley of remarks suddenly fired at her. This did not at all content her inquisitors, who, once their attention was drawn to her, felt their curiosity aroused.

"I say, why can't you speak?" said Barbara Marshall,[17] nudging her elbow. "You needn't look so scared. We're not going to eat you!"

[17]

"No cannibals here!" piped Romola Harvey.

"Lost, stolen, or strayed—a tongue! The property of the new girl. Finder will be handsomely rewarded," remarked Mary Beckett facetiously.

"You've got to answer some questions, Gerda Thorwaldson—I suppose that's your name?—so don't be silly!" urged Irene Jordan.

"Speak up! We shan't stand any nonsense!" added Elyned Hughes.

"What do you want me to say?" murmured Gerda, gulping down her embarrassment with something suspiciously like a sob, and blinking her blue eyes rapidly.

"Oh, you can talk English! Well, to begin with, are you German or not?"

"No."

"But you come from Germany?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever been in Cornwall before?"

"Never."

"I suppose you can dance?"

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